


Living Revenant

by Helloleonardmccoy



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark murder series, F/F, F/M, Murder Mystery, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 16:55:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24350149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helloleonardmccoy/pseuds/Helloleonardmccoy
Summary: A new partnership between Kate Elias and Seth Harris is put to the test when their Commander puts them in charge of a murder case. Seth believes it may not be the killers first.Personal lives get heated when Kate’s mother is arrested for dui and her friend Cameron calls from the hospital where she is treating her for alcohol poisoning. Seth deals with his ex wife trying to insert herself in his life again.Can the two settle their difference and work together to solve the mystery of what makes this killer tick or will they succumb to their differences?





	Living Revenant

He groaned as he felt his head pounding out the rhythm of his heart. He barely felt hard surface at his back and took that as a sign that he mixed to much Adderall with his alcohol again. He normally only did that when he was trying to sleep after a breakthrough. His head felt fuzy as he tried to place what had happened before he woke up on the floor.

He tried to push himself off the ground but slipped on a wet substance. Now that he was becoming more aware he realized he was covered in it. It smell strongly of chemicals, like the turpentine he used to thin his oil paintings. He coughed slightly, trying to shrug his shirt off. The smell was irritating his eyes and he was sure breathing it in wouldn’t be good for him.

Removing his shirt did not get rid of the smell. It was like he had bathed in it. It soaked through his pants and was all over the floor under him, leading over to the canvas he had been working on.

He felt dizzy as he looked up at it. It showed the outline of a woman, not at all finished other than her hair starting to fill out. He had brought her home after his opening at the Gagosian.

He stood up, almost retching from the over pungent smell. The mix of the drugs and alcohol swirled in his stomach, making him sick. His movements were slow as he walked to the door, jiggling the handle when it would not open. His brows furrowed in confusion. The door didn’t lock so why was it not opening?

He tried again and felt his chest tighten up when the door wouldn’t budge. He heard movement on the other side. “Hello? Anita?” He tried the handle once more. “I seem to be stuck in here.”

He heard a faint chuckle. “I know John.”

Sweat started pooling at the line of his hair. He hadn’t realized how hot in here it was, how stifling. His fans that he used while painting were gone. “This isn’t funny Anita. Let me out!” He thought that he had slammed his hand on the door hard but he was quickly becoming weaker. The paint thinner was making it hard to breath.

“Funny? Did you find it funny when you ruined those children’s lives John?”

“What are you talking about? That’s enough, open this damn door!” He tried to keep the panic at bay but the smell was becoming overwhelming.

She laughed again. “No John, I don’t think so. If anyone should pay for their sins it should have been you. Not those poor children.”

He could hear her footsteps moving away from that door. He tried calling out to her again until he heard the front door slam.

His chest heaved as he tried to suck in more air but instead swallowed more fumes out of the toxic air. He moved quickly to the windows. He tried to pull them up but they wouldn’t budge. He banged on the glass but he knew the old woman who lived next door would have taken a sleep aid. He had made too much noise over the years and had not been sorry about it resulting in the woman taking measures to get some peace at night. He almost regretted it now, but not when he thought of all the things he had accomplished in his drug and alcohol induced state over the years, music blasting in the background.

He ran back to the door struggling to try to wretch the door open but his hand started slipping with the sweat that accumulated on his body. The room was so hot, like the air had been turned off completely. He fell to his knees as his vision started to spot. His nails splintered as he desperately clawed at the floor while his vision went black. He could still hear Anitas cool laughter in his ears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She tapped her fingers against the table top in frustration as she leaned back against the booth, waiting for their waitress to bring them their coffee.

”You’re going to wear a hole through the table if you keep tapping out AC/DC.”

Kates head jerked back to face him from where she had been searching for their waitress. “And how do you know that’s what I was tapping out?”

”What? Don’t I look like I could like rock?” When she just stares at him, Seth sighed. “You were humming it under your breath and I remembered it from a concert my ex wife dragged me to. What’s it called? Noise pollution?”

She snorted. “Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution.” She rolled her eyes as he went on a tangent about grammar and how ain’t was actually an incorrect form of proper English. By the time he was winding down the waitress had brought their coffee and had taken their orders.

”You’re lucky you’re cute or I bet she would leave your sorry ass for correcting her grammar. I know I would.” The waitress said as she left Kate sputtering at the table behind her.

“We aren’t together!” She shouted at the woman’s back. She turned to Seth with a pleading look and growled when he just smirked. “I hate this place almost as much as I hate you. Slow service and their coffee is too sweet.” 

“Now you can’t talk like that Kate or she will really think you’re leaving me.” He took a sip of his coffee as she threw her creamer at him. “Putting cream in your coffee is probably better for you in the long run. Cream cuts down the acid in coffee.”

She grit her teeth at him. “I’ll start taking advice from you on coffee when you stop ordering the things with the most sugar in them.”

He chuckled. “Fair enough.”

They were already deep into discussion of the case with pictures spread over the table when the waitress came back.

She gasped and made a disgruntled noise while setting down their food.   
“How you can eat and do your work at the same time still astounds me Seth. If she can do it too she’s a keeper.” She turned and left before she could see Kate look at her sharply. 

“Just how often do you come here?” She raised an eyebrow at her partner.

”Enough that Pam knows all about my divorce and still hopes that I will find that special someone. Sorry but it looks like she has her bet on you.” He laughed at her angry expression. 

“Fat chance. You’re not my type. And besides, working together should take me off her list.”

”I think everyone is open game for her now. The last blind date I went on was such a disaster that she’s scared I will die alone. Found laying in bed, eaten by cats. Her words.”

She snorts and looks back down at the files. “If this had been suicide the guy should have just huffed the solvant. Why would he seal the room and put plastic wrap over the vents? They found a fan in another room that was probably what he used to keep the fumes down.”

”Hmmm, the guys that had the case before it got pushed to us thought that maybe he didn’t want to chicken out in the middle. Locked himself in so there would be no escape.” He tapped his finger on the table in thought. Kate didn’t like the look on his face.

”But you don’t think so?”

”No. I think there have been too many murders recently for this to be a coincidence.” He looked up from the pictures to meet her eyes.

”They have nothing in common. A man that was picked up by a woman at an AA meeting.” She ticked off one finger and put up a second for the next victim. “And a woman that missed her trial date in family court. Nothing in common. She abused her kid and he abused alcohol. I don’t see it.”

Seth ran his tongue over his teeth in thought before blowing out a breath. “Hear me out. You won’t like it but I have a theory.”

She waves her hand at him in a continue motion. 

“They both had a violent past. She beat her child until finally someone noticed and took him away. His grandparents will definitely get him now that she’s out of the picture. He beat his girlfriend so badly that she slipped into a coma. They couldn’t prove it was him since she had never reported it before but the frequent hospital trips more than made that theory a probability.”

”So what? We have an avenging angel on our hands?” She pointed to the latest victims picture. “So what did he do that would warrant this angels attention?”

”Honestly I don’t know yet.”

She have a sharp grin. “Finally something you admit to not knowing.”

”We can’t just guess his character flaws from his background checks.”

She smirked. “What we can tell is that he was a wealthy, white male in the prime of his life. A successful artist that was probably not hurting for dates. Money will do that for you. His sexual orientation was straight considering the donations he gave to groups such as the American Family Association. Or he was very closeted.”

”No I agree with that. I believe the same woman also killed our non functioning alcoholic. And if my theory is correct the pathetic excuse for a mother as well.”

“Why? Because they were both abusive? Do they have anything else in common other than that?” She started gathering up the pictures and placing them back in the folder.

“This is why I told you that you wouldn’t like it.”

“I like evidence. I don’t like going off just gut feelings.”

He snorted. “You go off your gut more than I do. What I do is called abductive reasoning.”

She stood up to follow him out the front door of the diner. “Don’t you mean deductive?”

He shook his head, giving her a patient look that she was starting to hate. He always did it when he thought she was being slow in coming to the same conclusions as him. One day she would smack it off his face. “Deductive reasoning is when you have principles that are known to be true and a specific conclusion. The most used example is that men are mortal. I am a man. I am mortal. Inductive is more of a generalized conclusion that can turn out to be false. It allows us to hypothesize and form theories and then deduction allows us to apply theories to specific situations. And the thing that I used on this case is abductive reasoning. A set of observations that I try to look at and find the most likely explanation out of. We can use the other two forms of reasoning when we are more certain about theories. Do you follow?”

“Not even a little bit. All I gather is that you’re guessing until you get more information.” She tucked that file up under her arm as she reached for the door but he beat her to it again, opening it for her.

“Close enough. I am using a likely scenario to link these cases. If I’m wrong, no harm no foul. If I am correct we can start gathering more information off of my thought that this is the same person in all three murders.”

“What is your basis for thinking it is?”

“Witnesses at the art gallery describe our victim getting chummy with a woman. Basic description sounds similar enough to our AA patron that I thought I would look into who went home with the child abuser as well.”

Her jeep clicked when she unlocked the back door to put the file in. “And they were the same?”

“Same build and facial feature description from what the could see in the bar. They couldn’t figure how longer her hair was though. She had it up in a French twist at the gallery, so we know that it was at least shoulder length. Down at the AA meeting and curled at the bar. All were described as black hair.”

“So we have a woman that could possibly be all three murders based on a similar description? Do you know how many petite, black haired women there are in New York, Seth?” She asked sarcastically. “Too many for us to get the clear on calling these serial murders and getting the other cases.”

“That is why we are going to find more information on this. I say we start at the latest crime scene and then work our way to the morgue.”

She grimaced. “Just how I wanted to end my day. With the smell of febreeze and rotting meat.”

She sat down at her small vanity table, brushing her dark hair out from where it had been up all night in a twist. She probably wouldn’t be able to get the waves out without washing it, but she didn’t have time before work. She sighed, grabbing a hair tie off the table and pulling her hair into a high pony tail. It would keep it out of the way while she cleaned. She had three houses to do today. Not as busy as a Friday but enough to keep her out of the house for a while.

She headed into the living room, straightening things as she walked. “Do you need more tea mama, before I go?” 

He mother sat, large and imposing, in front of the tv in the living room. She had her feet propped up in the lazy boy. Her breathing was shallow because of the weight she had put on. The doctor had said that with the kidney failure she had needed to watch her diet more closely but Mama said that was hog wash and that she hadn’t been alive this long to stop what she wanted to do now.

“Yes wretched girl, I needed more tea when you got home earlier but of course you never thought to ask me.”

She winced at her mothers nasally voice. “Im sorry mama. I didn’t even think to ask before I started getting ready for work.” She moved quickly towards the kitchen, taking her cup to refill.

“Didn’t think. Probably too busy think about what you got up to last night. The good lord knows young lady. I do not know why he cursed me with such a disgrace. If your father was still alive to see how you parade yourself around in front of men he would be tanning you hide.”

She had tried to grow thicker skin for when her mama started calling her a slut but it always stung. “I didn’t do anything last night mama. I went to a gallery opening remember?” She grabbed the kettle off the stove to make sure it was still hot. Mama took tea with cream but if it cooled off the tea too much she would be angry.

“You cant fool the lord child. He knows your wicked deeds. That’s how you tricked Kyle into marrying you after all.”

She ground her teeth together, reaching up into the cabinet. “Kyle wanted to marry me even before I got pregnant mama.” She found a bottle that would go well with the herbal taste the tea would give off. Just a few drops not to be too overpowering. Mama had bought them to use instead of the bad medicine big pharma produced after all. She was used to the taste.

“And what happened because of your misdeeds? Your promiscuity? He took that child from you. Knew that it would be better off dead than having a mother like you.”

“Don’t say that mama.” Her hand shook as she handed the woman her tea.

Mama snorted. “I speak the truth and you know it. I deserved grandbabies the right way, not out of your dalliances in high school. For all we knew it may not have even been Kyles.”

She grabbed her car keys off the table near the door. “I had never been with another man other than Kyle and I have not been since.” She reached for the door when her mothers laugh hit her.

“The lord knows your misdeeds.” Her mother cleared her throat loudly. “You need to go by Graces after work to pick up more oils. I don’t want to have to remind you again Eve.”

“Yes mama.” She left the dark lit house and walked out into the light of the sun. It was a warm spring day and Eve would be stuck inside again. At least until night time.


End file.
